MA Religion, Politics and Society

The dissertation (10,000 words) will be a core component of the MA Religion, Politics and Society. The dissertation is intended both to extend and consolidate the student’s theoretical and regional understanding applied to prominent themes and debates in the field of religion.

This module builds on the first term module ‘Religion and Global Politics: Theories and Genealogies’ in order to question dominant approaches to religion and politics. Taking a thematic approach, we will examine a range of topics where the seemingly self-evident division between religion and politics is subjected to critical, applied analysis that engages specifically with contexts, perspectives, and practices in the global south. Themes will include religion, sectarianism and democratisation processes, the relationship between religious discourses and political violence or conflict resolution, the legislative difficulties presented by contradictions in liberalist political principles that underpin the political systems of the global North and its models of multiculturalism, variant conceptions of state-religion relationships, the role of religion in identity politics, state responses to religious identity claims and priorities, free speech and blasphemy, and religious discrimination in the framework of international human rights discourses, amongst others

The so-called ‘resurgence’ of religion in the public sphere and the domain of the political more generally in recent decades is now a significant area of interdisciplinary scholarship, eliciting a complex array of responses, ranging from vehement opposition to the very idea that religious concepts and commitments have a right to expression in public, political debates to a reassessment of the provenance and implications of divisions between the secular and the religious and their relationship to the nation state and the post-colony. The current geopolitical landscape wherein ‘religion’ has apparently become a force to be reckoned with has demanded a reassessment of once predominant understandings of processes of secularisation, as well as the meanings of, and tensions inherent within secular assumptions and secularist positions. The notion that there is no singular secularism, but rather a plurality of secularisms, and of religion as an invention of European modernity and colonialist exigencies are two of many emerging efforts to reconceptualise the meanings of religion, politics, and the secular and the entangled relationship between them.
This course will offer a comprehensive overview of these debates focusing particularly on theorisations of the nature of secularism and the role of religion in the public sphere as well as the genealogies of these debates in order to attend to the central issue of how the relationship between religion and politics is constituted, understood, and instantiated in a global context.

This module focuses on important themes and arguments in African philosophy that are recurrent in ongoing debates in the discipline. It begins with the meta-philosophical theme of reimagining the nature and focus of African philosophy. It then examines current debates and arguments on major core themes and lived experiences in the discipline. These include themes and debates on language and orality, personhood, development and democracy, identity, philosophy of disability, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of health and wellbeing. The module will expose students to a rich tradition of philosophy and equip them with ways of bridging theoretical concerns in African philosophy with global practical issues and experiences.

This course discusses emerging identities and contending views in the origins and early history of Islam, 600 and 1000 CE. The approach is historical, and examines the crucial question of how different types of Islam emergened.

The module examines the early modern and contemporary reformulations of Islamic thought and practices in response to modern challenges (19th, 20th & 21st centuries). The module will begin by examining the nature of these challenges, and how modern Muslims responded to them. The module will identify the similarities and differences between the premodern and modern reformist movements throughout Muslim-majority societies, and how Muslims have reformulated foundational dimensions of Islamic jurisprudence and theology in their efforts to adapted to modern developments. The module will also examine?the main features and characteristics of the prominent trends in contemporary Islamic thought (Islamist, Salafi, Progressive and Neo-Traditionalist), highlighting similarities and differences between them in relation to how they engage with the authoritative texts (Qur’an & hadiths), as well as the diversity of expressions within these trends. The module will identify how these diverse modern reformulations and trends are based on criticisms of classical developments in Islamic thought and practices, and how they attempt to ‘reform’ (i?la?) these using different methodologies. The module will also emphasise how these modern reformulations invoke the classical Islamic legacy of renewal (tajdid) in different ways resulting in different modern understandings of ‘Islam’. The module aims to develop a theoretical foundation for understanding these modern Islamic trends, and this foundation underpins the subsequent examination of expressions of these trends in relation to particular themes in the module convened in term two: Modern Trends in Islam (ii): Manifestations.

This module will offer a main narrative of Taoism as a recognisable tradition of religious ideas and practices throughout the history of China.

This module constitutes the core course for the MA Yoga Studies. It is designed to provide students with an understanding of key theoretical approaches to the interpretation of the subject, as well as a familiarity with those methodologies utilised in the context of the other modules within the MA. The first component of this course—‘Perspectives’—focuses on the study of experience. The categories of the emic and the etic, which provide accounts of cultural behaviour and belief from the standpoint of the insider and the outsider, respectively, are probed, and examples of their application to ethnological data provided. This background is then used to explore the ways in which meaning and value are interpreted in relation to the category of religious experiences, such as those obtained through yoga.
The second component of the course - Context - presents the broad historical, social, economic, cultural and doctrinal contexts which will be explored in detail in the modules belonging to this MA; the purpose is to tie together the regions and cultures by discussing them in relation to a common historical framework and examining their interactions over the period in which ideas relating to yoga were developing across the sub-continent, the Himalayas, and East Asia. Finally, ‘Methodologies’ investigates academic approaches relevant to the study of yoga. This begins with a discussion of Pierre Bourdieu’s emphasis on practice for the iteration of cultural meaning, then discuss the idea of performativity in relation to the definition of identity, as developed by Judith Butler, and to disciplinary techniques, as charted by Foucault. These specific ideas are related to the broader field of ritual theory. Finally, the course explores the psychological and physiological aspects of yoga on the basis of current research, at the examples of modern mindfulness and yoga therapy.

This course offers an advanced introduction to the history, doctrines, beliefs and practices of Buddhism in China. This thematic history will explore the transition from ‘Buddhism in China’ to the formation of ‘Chinese Buddhism’, and the emergence of its distinctive identity in the wider context of Buddhism as a cross-cultural religious tradition and Buddhism as an identity marker of Chinese culture.

This module examines the relationship between philosophical thought and religious practice. It is often assumed, without due interrogation, that philosophical insight springs from religious experience, that religion possesses the capacity to construe cognitive gateways through which philosophical understanding emerges. Thus, on the one hand, the module seeks to establish the soteriological dynamics that shape the processes leading to philosophical insight. On the other hand, it explores the ways in which philosophical systems shaped religions practice. These two areas of investigation focus on the experience of the individual. Third, the module maps the interconnections between communal religious practice in ritual and philosophical theory. It sets out the processes and stages through which philosophical structures emerge as a result of collective religions experience.

The course offers an introduction to yoga in the context of the Jaina path of liberation. The historical roots of contemporary Jaina practices of asceticism and meditation will be explored with reference to their metaphysical and soteriological rational and institutionalisation in Jaina mendicant and lay traditions in India and the UK.

The course begins by establishing the religion in a historical context starting with early Muslim migrations and settlement in Britain in the 19th century, through the various phases of subsequent migrations, to the institutionalising of Islam in Britain in the early twentieth century and the emergence of community leaders. Within this framework it will cover the different ethnic, sectarian and doctrinal approaches to Islam belonging to and/or adopted by migrants and second and third generation Muslims. The second part of the course will focus on particular issues that have arisen, uniquely, out of the above context and in response to world events.

This module will trace the development of Jewish thought from its Middle Eastern origins in antiquity to the Westernisation and Europeanisation of Judaism in the 19th century, as the consequence of the philosophical Enlightenment and Jewish Emancipation. Jewish thought can be understood properly only within its respective historical, political, and cultural contexts. Starting with the Torah/Hebrew Bible as the very basis of Judaism, subsequent sessions will explore Jewish thinkers' encounters with Hellenism (Philo of Alexandria), Roman imperialism (rabbis), Islam (Maimonides), European Enlightenment philosophy (Moses Mendelssohn), Psychoanalysis (Freud), Existentialism (Rosenzweig, Buber, and Soloveitchik), Marxism (Levinas), and Postmodernism. The module will familiarize students with an intellectual tradition that developed mostly outside of the western orbit until a hundred years ago, and explore the changes brought about by assimilation to western European culture.

This module gives an overview of the historical development of yoga in South Asia and maps the proliferation of its practice across its religious traditions. To begin with, it focuses on Vedic, epic, and classical textual accounts of yoga, and considers how Vedic elements of ritual and speculative poetry gradually adapted to new theoretical and philosophical frameworks to integrate into a systems of ‘classical’ practice. In the second part,  it moves to the Tantric and Ha?ha yoga traditions where it traces developments in postural yoga, meditation, subtle physiology, and metaphysics, as reflected in diverse Siddha, Saiva, Sakta, and Vai??ava communities.

This module explores religion in Japan in its historical context, focusing on topics that are relevant for a critical understanding of the role of religion in shaping Japanese culture, society and politics.

This module explores religion in Japan in its contemporary context, focusing on topics that are relevant for a critical understanding of the role of religion in shaping Japanese culture, society and politics. 

This module examines the roles of yoga in the contemproray world. It addresses issues such as Gender, Race, Class, Power, Sexuality, Media, Identity  and New Age Societal Withdrawal as factors that emerge within, and shape modern yoga practice, both within the studio and in conception. The lectures and seminars set out to frame yoga as it is taught and practiced today within the values and societal forces that dominate present-day public disourse.

Zoroastrianism, known of old as ‘the Persian religion’, is one of the world’s most ancient living religions and one of Iran’s great contributions to the history of religious thought. It is deeply rooted in the prehistoric Indo-Iranian and, ultimately, Indo-European tradition and thus shares a common heritage with the Vedic religion and Hinduism. In its long history it has been in contact with many other religions, notably Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. For over a thousand years it was the dominant religion of three great Iranian empires under the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian rulers, extending at times from the Indus river to the coastline and islands of Asia Minor.
This course offers both a survey of the teachings, history and religious practice of the Zoroastrian tradition and in-depth analysis of individual aspects. Topics that will be studied in greater detail include issues of the contemporary community in a historical perspective.
Teaching happens in the form of a one-hour lecture and a one-hour seminar. Students will be asked to analyse and critique reading material on a weekly basis. Topics of the seminars will include the role of orality in Zoroastrian studies, theoretical and methodological approaches to Zoroastrian studies, and the links between Zoroastrianism and migration and diaspora studies.

Zoroastrianism, known of old as ‘the Persian religion’, is one of the world’s most ancient living religions and one of Iran’s great contributions to the history of religious thought. It is deeply rooted in the prehistoric Indo-Iranian and, ultimately, Indo-European tradition and thus shares a common heritage with the Vedic religion and Hinduism. In its long history it has been in contact with many other religions, notably Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. For over a thousand years it was the dominant religion of three great Iranian empires under the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian rulers, extending at times from the Indus river to the coastline and islands of Asia Minor.
This course offers both a survey of the teachings, history and religious practice of the Zoroastrian tradition and in-depth analysis of individual aspects. Topics that will be studied in greater detail include issues of the contemporary community in a historical perspective.
Teaching happens in the form of a one-hour lecture and a one-hour seminar. Students will be asked to analyse and critique reading material on a weekly basis. Topics of the seminars will include the role of orality in Zoroastrian studies, theoretical and methodological approaches to Zoroastrian studies, and the links between Zoroastrianism and migration and diaspora studies.

This module examines the major traditions of rationalism that shaped Islamic thought from the tenth to the thirteenth century and continued to inform subsequent intellectual activity into the modern period, with especial focus on the philosophical and theological traditions, aspects of legal theory and cross-disciplinary dynamics. Motivating historical and analytical approaches through the bi-disciplinary lens of the history of philosophy and intellectual history, the module firstly provides a critical understanding of the epistemological and systemic architecture of these traditions combined with a deep dive into selected topics. It secondly investigates external contexts that shaped intellectual production, such as socio-political landscapes, authority structures, networks, institutions and intellectual canons. Throughout the module, we engage closely with the historiography of Islamic thought, critically assessing the approaches, narratives, trends and debates that have driven the field since the late nineteenth century to the present day.

This module takes research methods as philosophically and practically exciting techniques and attitudes that allow us to know and understand the world better. The material addresses the history and foundations of anthropological knowledge, and describes some of the key concepts in anthropological methodology by using 'ethnographic writing' as a guide. The module encourages self-reflexivity, ethical conduct, and an anticipatory awareness of research practice and design. We explore ideas such as participant observation, the field, fieldwork, fieldnotes, interviewing and the ways in which scales of knowledge (local and global) can be brought into conversation through well-thought through methodology.

What is migration? Is this the “age of migration”? What is Diaspora and what challenges do diasporic communities bring to modern political constructions such as the nation-state, national “imagined” communities, citizenship and their associated metaphysics of sedentarism? This course will explore these issues by critically engaging with the ways in which migration and diaspora have been understood historically and in modern and contemporary times. Different theories, approaches, and disciplinary angles will be introduced and discussed. We will also consider what de-colonising approaches to migration and diaspora might look like. By drawing on established and less charted bodies of work on migration studies, diaspora and identity, transnationalism, postcolonial and de-colonial studies the course offers an interdisciplinary approach to the emergence of diasporas, the reformulation of 'home' and the simultaneous instability and reinforcement of nation-states.

This module is intended to provide both an introduction to queer theory, as well as to engage with the question of its relevance in contemporary Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This module will use struggles for sexual self-determination as a prism through which to consider broader questions about the constitution of modernity, the proliferation of identities, rights and claims for justice, the consolidation and deconstruction of postcolonial national identities, the aspirations and anxieties of postcolonial elites, etc. These questions will be studied contextually, with topics in many weeks focusing on a single area case study, or a comparison of two or more country-contexts.

This module addresses the historical emergence of the ‘Chinese nation’. It focuses on socio-cultural identity as well as the ideological frameworks which were employed by different political regimes to promote the concept of China as a modern nation state. It begins with an analysis of the changing relationship between the Han majority, the ruling Manchu elite and the other major ethnic groups forming the Qing empire (1644-1911). It subsequently examines the panoply of new intellectual currents at the turn of the twentieth century, and political responses to the volatile situation following the transition to the Republic of China. The module analyses the tension between socialist internationalism, modern nationalism and traditional Chinese values, while focusing on differing interpretations of ‘Chinese tradition’ during the early People’s Republic.

This module explores the interconnected understandings of ‘Race’ and the ‘Human’ that emerged from the crucible of European imperial projects across the world. We will examine how modern theorisations of these categories are inextricable from ideologies of civilisational progress and produced through a range of political, economic, and legal institutions. Analysing a range of key works of imperial historiography as primary sources, we will examine the epistemological foundations of how the Human came to be understood in European imaginations as embedded within racialised logics. Asking how else we might conceptualise personhood and difference, we will read a range of works of History belonging to colonised peoples’ intellectual traditions. Using lenses such as the ‘love story’ and the ‘dream’ as optics into Others' epistemes, we will delve into theories of being that structure a range of historiographical traditions from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.

This postgraduate module examines the various international and domestic factors that led to and fed the wars in Afghanistan (and standoff between the US and Iran) since 1979.

What makes a person worthy or unworthy of freedom? Who is entitled to justice? What do we mean by equality? Although understood and dealt with differently in different contexts, these questions have constituted, as they still do today, the central concerns and dilemmas in all past societies. Starting with different formulations of a ‘just society’ across time and space, this module explores historical contexts in which these magic yet elusive ideas took on new meanings and significance. Organized thematically, weekly reading assignments and discussions address such topics as revolution, emancipation, forms of free and unfree labour, decolonization, and gendered aspects of rights and obligations.

This module studies the historical foundations of colonialism and revolution in the Middle East. It does not begin with a preconceived conception of the ‘colonial’ but examines a series of spatial and temporal transformations through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the region. It explores the conceptual distinctions that emerged between the ‘economic’, the ‘religious’ and the ‘political’ to ask a series of questions: Where do we locate the ‘colonial’? At what moments does it come to be elaborated? Is it merely a result of ‘physical’ occupation by European powers, or could it have begun in another set of relations? Could the Ottoman empire and Qajar Iran be seen to become ‘colonial’ as the nineteenth century progressed?And what forms of resistance and revolution did this generate?  Each week, the module examines one of the central categories of political and economic history, unpacking the processes by which they have emerged, transformed, or come to be reconfigured.

This module uses diverse legal, historical, anthropological and sociological literature to introduce the dynamic region of Southeast Asia to SOAS postgraduate students. We are guided by a law and society approach, which places an emphasis on empirical, interdisciplinary understandings of the historical and present-day Southeast Asian polities; their social, religious and legal regimes; and the ways they have interacted with one another. You are not required to possess any prior knowledge of legal studies or, indeed, of Southeast Asia. Your weekly classes will be led by experts in the field of Southeast Asian Studies, and you will be able to learn a great deal about the historical, social and legal dimensions of life across Southeast Asia.

This module offers an investigation into the theories and key texts that inform the dynamic field(s) of postcolonial, decolonial and anticolonial studies, with a specific focus on law. Whilst anticolonial uprisings are as old as the global project of Euro-American colonialism and imperialism itself, the long twentieth century saw the emergence of a body of thought that critically addressed the realities of both an enduring ‘coloniality of being’ around the world and the prospects of a Third Worldist approach to social, political and legal justice claims. This body of thought is the core preoccupation of the module, taught by a diverse team of experts in the field. No prior knowledge of law is required to attend the module.

This module critically explores the different theoretical perspectives of the relationship between Human Rights and Islamic law and examines the practices of some relevant Muslim-majority States in that regard.

This module critically explores the different theoretical perspectives of the relationship between Human Rights and Islamic law and examines the practices of some relevant Muslim-majority States in that regard. Following on from Part 1, this module focuses on substantive issues, States practices and application of the law.

As the most heavily populated region in the world, the Indian subcontinent has always played an important role in world affairs. From being one of the most successful trading nations of the world, to becoming the heart of the British Empire, and now sitting adjacent to the newly world-dominant China, South Asia has always been a region of strategic, cultural, political and economic importance.? This module aims to introduce students to the many ways in which law, religion and the state interact in the subcontinent. We seek to do so by using, as far as possible, authors from the region, and focus on issues that continue to hold contemporary relevance.
We begin by briefly examining the relationship between law and religion in the colonial legal system in South Asia and its lasting legacies today. In contemporary South Asia we study the increasing rise of religious intolerance and religious nationalism in South Asia and the legislative and judicial responses to these challenges before analysing whether ‘secularism’ can ever truly be at home in the subcontinent. Other topics include freedom of religion, offences against religion including laws against blasphemy, and the recent provisions against interfaith marriages in India.

This module introduces students to the way in which law, religion and the state interact in the family law systems of the subcontinent. We study the construction of family law in the colonial legal system in South Asia and its lasting legacies today. A central focus is analyse of the impact of religion on family law, and especially the ways in which this affects women. Within the field of personal and family law we discuss a number of themes and jurisdictions, such as child marriage and polygamy, marriage equality and queer rights, Public Interest Litigation and women's rights, divorce and maintenance, the much-debated issue of uniform civil codes and finally, the role of family courts and ADR in dispute resolution. subcontinent. We seek to do so by using, as far as possible, authors from the region, and focus on issues that continue to hold contemporary relevance.

The aim of the course is to provide an overview of the ways in which varying bodies of scholarship across and intra-various disciplines engage and study Palestine, and also an examination of how the study of Palestine cuts across and informs scholarly, theoretical, political and disciplinary approaches. The course addresses issues relating to the questions of conflict and political economy, development, cultural politics, social and economic relations, identity, and other major concerns of humanities and social sciences.

This course will investigate the evolving nature of security governance and risks in the 21st century, with particular attention to emerging threats in the realms of nuclear weapons, non-state terrorism, climate change, energy, and food security, as well as emerging forms of security governance in the domains of surveillance and policing.

This compulsory core module for the MSc pathway in Political Thought focuses on approaches to the study of political theory in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This module is distinct from other modules in area studies degrees since our study is not confined to a single geographical region; rather focus is on the study of concepts and political thought and how these emerge in varying contexts, times and places. Students will read works by Achille Mbembe, Ali Shariati, Saba Mahmood, Rajeev Bhargava, Leigh Jenco, Franz Fanon, BR Ambedkar, amongst others in order to develop an understanding of how political theory is produced in a multiplicity of contexts across the world. As such, this module pushes the boundaries regarding the understanding of political theory conventionally based on a western-focused canon.